A new landscape architecture : The living fences experience in Buenos Aires

Abstract

The Breathe/Respirar Project (BRP) explores opportunities to improve air quality in schoolyards using living fences, and to facilitate the multiple social and environmental co-benefits that can result from greening existing urban infrastructures, which include opportunities for environmental education and reconnecting people with nature. This exploration takes place through a series of experiments in Urban Living Labs set in schoolyards of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The experiments involve (1) engaging the school community (teachers, schoolchildren, parents, other stakeholders) to co-create the experiment; (2) designing and implementing interventions in ‘the schoolyard as landscape’; (3) including activities that enhance co-benefits; (4) monitoring integrated effects; and (5) collectively analysing outcomes. The essay discusses preliminary findings from a pilot project’s early set up. With effectiveness outcomes still in process, we focus on implications for further project implementation and wider lessons learned to inform the practice of landscape architecture in the context of interdisciplinary socio-environmental projects. These speak to a framework of three premises (making environmental commitment a central pillar; using multidisciplinary approaches for multifunctional landscapes; and communicating strong messages through landscapes themselves and complementary activities). We suggest the current relevance of this professional ethos as landscape architecture seeks to play a bigger role in meeting environmental challenges.